Americans Abroad: Weekend Rewind

TSG 1899 Hoffenheim finally won their first game of the Bundesliga season by upsetting Hannover 96, and both Fabian Johnson and Danny Williams played a part in making that happen.

The two U.S. men's national team players went the distance and scored goals for Hoffenheim in their stunning 3-1 victory over Steve Cherundolo and Hannover. The match started poorly for struggling Hoffenheim, as they went down courtesy of an own goal in the 26th minute. But Johnson erased that deficit with a quality goal (his first of the campaign) that saw him beat Cherundolo a minute later, and Williams added an insurance goal in second-half stoppage time for his first tally in a Hoffenheim uniform.

Conor O'Brien also netted this weekend, but he contributed more than that in SonderjyskE's 2-2 draw with AGF Aarhus. O'Brien inspired SonderjyskE's rally from a two-goal deficit that saw U.S.-eligible forward Aron Johannsson tally, scoring a goal before assisting on the equalizer in the waning moments of the match.

Carlos Bocanegra did not find the back of the net but he did make his Racing Santander debut on Saturday. Bocanegra started and played 90 minutes as Santander got a 1-0 win against Mirandes, a result that extended the club's current unbeaten streak to four games in Spain's Segunda Division.

While Bocanegra made his debut, so too did U.S. Under-20 men's national team midfielder Hector Benji Joya. The just-turned 19-year-old made his professional debut by coming off the bench and playing 36 minutes in Santos Laguna's scoreless draw with Jaguares de Chiapas on Saturday.

Here's how the Americans Abroad performed this weekend:

ENGLAND

Premiership

Tim Howard started, played 90 minutes and made four saves in Everton's 3-0 win vs. Swansea City on Saturday.

Im really interested to see who he picks. Hope for the USA but I understand if he picks Iceland. If he does pick the US he’s going to make a few strikers in our pool to sweat over their spots (Gomez, Wondo, Boyd, Agudelo)

According to the BS forum, he played well, probably best of the back 4, but seemed to have been blamed for the first goal, where he lost the ball. Even though he lost it far in the attacking zone, and plenty of play ensued before the goal, the announcers and the coach seemed to have put the onus of blame on Lichaj, as he was subbed.

Out of the 4, there was one he probably should have kept out, but I don’t think he really had much of a chance on the others. Southampton has proved they can put up some goals against top competition, and combined with Villa’s retched defending, it was a recipe for disaster.

I’ve seen it before in old photo’s when the negative is flipped before it is developed ( I think). It makes everything opposite. It looks like that’s what happened, because Fabian was on the right side, and beat Cherundolo, who would have beeen playing the left side for Hannover. Obviously this is not the norm. Just a thougth…

Funny about Hoffenheim. A couple of years ago, we were all excited to see those two Americans who ere coming up through the Hoffenheim system: Renken and Gyau. Now, we are rooting for these other “Americans’ there.

Should be noted that Timothy Chandler was seen by most as the flop of the match in Nurnberg’s 2-0 loss Friday to Eintracht Frankfurt, and that is the reason he was yanked in the 70th minute. Chandler’s bad head clearance helped set up Frankfurt’s first goal and Chandler was beat bad to allow Takashi Inui to dribble around him to score the second goal. Maybe Timmy is spending too much time hoping that Jogi Low will call him up for Germany’s October World Cup qualifiers.

Here are a couple of player ratings using a system from 1-6, with 1 the best and 6 the worst.

it was always a stupid idea to go to a team that just signed a guy who is basically the exact same as you … age, nationality, position(s) … and who is also probably better than you … Edu should have never signed for Stoke so I have no pity for him … actually, if he never gets to play maybe JK will dump him and that would actually turn out to be a silver lining for the NT.

yikes, Dolo got beat on all 3 goals. Johnson gets by him on the 1st. on the 2nd he ends up getting beat and the guy crosses the ball in for the assist. and on the 3rd, Dolo makes a tackle, but then gets nutmegged and the guy ends up beating two more guys then passing to Williams who scores.

Unless I’m terribly mistaken, Low can’t call him up even if he wants to. Chandler will need to file paperwork for his one-time switch. He can switch to Germany from the USA, since he has only played in friendlies for the USA, but he will still need to file the paperwork and have it approved by FIFA (which should be pretty much a rubber stamp, but still it takes time). We will know that Chandler has switched allegiance officially long before Low announces any rosters, since it will probably become public when he files the paperwork (as it did for Jones and Edgar Castillo).